Resources for Refugees Facing Deportation to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos

Cambodia

Cambodia signed a repatriation agreement with the U.S. in 2002. Since then, about 800 people have been deported from the U.S. to Cambodia. The deportations picked up speed in the fall of 2017, when the U.S. cut off visas for certain high-level Cambodian government officials until they start cooperating with U.S. deportation policy. Cambodia will not issue a travel document until after interviewing a person. Cambodian officials travel to the U.S. each year to conduct interviews at a detention facility. ICE carries out raids targeting Cambodians with removal orders in preparation for the interviews each year. There are about 1,900 Cambodians with removal orders in the U.S.

A round of interviews took place in York, Pennsylvania in early May 2018, and a deportation flight with around 30 Cambodians left at the end of August 2018.

ICE detained around sixty Cambodians in September 2018, and they were interviewed at the Krome Detention Center in Miami, Florida. A deportation flight with 36 Cambodians left from El Paso, Texas on December 17, 2018.

We expect ICE to raid the Cambodian community again by early January, with interviews likely scheduled for the last week of January.

January 3, 2019: A nationwide temporary restraining order on Cambodian arrests was just granted in US District Court. This means many Cambodian immigrants CANNOT be detained by ICE without written notice. If you have a check-in scheduled this month, call our hotline at 415-952-0413 to find out if you’re included in today’s order.